Last Space Shuttle to Fly Headed for Launch Pad Tonight

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The space shuttle Atlantis will make one final trip to its
Florida launch pad tonight (May 31) as NASA prepares the orbiter
to launch the last mission of its 30-year shuttle program on July
8.

The shuttle's rollout, set for 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT Wednesday),
also comes on the eve of the final landing of Atlantis'
sister orbiter, Endeavour. Endeavour is slated to return to
Earth at 2:35 a.m. EDT (0635 GMT) on June 1, carrying six
astronauts home after a 16-day mission to the International Space
Station.

Both Endeavour's landing, and Atlantis' rollout, will take place
at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The rare
confluence of the two milestone events is expected to draw
several thousand employees and reporters as spectators. [ Most
Memorable Shuttle Missions ]

"It obviously makes the significance a little high because it’s
the last landing for Atlantis and the last scheduled rollout
ever," NASA spokesman Allard Beutel told SPACE.com. "Put those
two together, that makes it unique."

Atlantis will be slowly rolled from the gigantic Vehicle Assembly
Building (VAB), where the orbiter was attached with its external
fuel tank and solid rocket boosters, out to launch Pad 39A, where
it is scheduled to lift off one final time on July 8. The
orbiter was moved from its hanger, called
the Orbiter Processing Facility, to the VAB on May 17.

It will be the last mission not just for Atlantis, but for NASA's
30-year-old space shuttle fleet. The shuttles are being retired
to make way for new spacecraft NASA plans to build to take humans
to an asteroid and Mars. Discovery completed its final mission in
March, while Endeavour is wrapping up its own last spaceflight
this week.

As the end of an era, this final rollout, and certainly
Endeavour's landing, will be emotionally charged.

"As opposed to being sad, I think it's more people wanting to be
a part of the finale of the space shuttle program," Beutel said.
"Maybe we'll start feeling the sadness at other times. People
want to experience it and be a part of space exploration
history."

Atlantis' STS-135 mission will carry four astronauts and a
cargo bay full of spare parts to help outfit the space station
for a long life after the shuttle era. Following Atlantis'
flight, NASA astronauts will have to rent seats aboard Russian
Soyuz spacecraft to travel to the orbiting laboratory, until U.S.
commercial spaceships are ready to start carrying people.

To help commemorate Atlantis' journey to the launch pad, the
shuttle's four person crew — NASA astronauts Chris Ferguson, Doug
Hurley, Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim — will answer reporters'
questions and pose for a photo op in front of the moving shuttle
Tuesday night. NASA has never before brought a shuttle's crew out
for a media opportunity during rollout.

With the shuttle fleet retiring, NASA is developing a
new spacecraft for deep space exploration, called the
Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, for the new exploration goals. The
capsule-based spacecraft is expected to make its first
operational flights in 2016, so NASA plans to rely on Russian
Soyuz spacecraft and private U.S. vehicles to ferry crews to the
space station until then.